I mean …where do I start? The cinemas – those great places of solace and refuge – made it until March before succumbing to the nationwide lockdown. Then, they were open again in some areas and shut in others.
Cineworld – one of the biggest chains in the UK – decided to close their doors long before their rivals, Odeon. Small independents struggled for survival.
This is the year in which we’ve been unable to access the usual summer blockbusters. Even James Bond couldn’t stand up to Covid-19. As a result, we’ve turned to streaming platforms in droves and sought out smaller, indie movies to keep us ticking over.
It feels strange to write up this list when I genuinely believed I hadn’t even seen ten new movies this year, and there are some notable omissions (like Relic, Denmark, The Hunt, Borat and Tenet), but here goes …
10. Eurovision: Story of Fire Saga
I will not apologise for how much fun I had watching this movie. For anyone who was seriously craving the cheesy pop and outlandish costumes of the cancelled song contest, this Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams vehicle certainly did the trick. It was camp; it was sparkly; it had some banging tunes. Whilst it did transplant the Glasgow Hydro to Edinburgh, it did give us Dan Stevens, clad in leather, belting out Lion of Love. It was much needed light relief at the beginning of the pandemic.
9. 1917
Much was made of Sam Mendes’ movie being shot “in one take”. But this was never used in a gimmicky way. It simply followed the stories of two very young soldiers, plunged into a conflict they don’t actually know too much about. The central performances from George Mackay and Dean Charles Chapman are absolutely captivating. It’s a film that truly exposes the horrors of war and what we now know to be PTSD. It’s completely striking in its simplicity and intensity.
8. The Blackcoat’s Daughter / February
This might be cheating a bit, but Oz Perkins’ movie only made it to the UK (via Amazon Prime) this year. It’s an unsettling horror, along the same lines as The Witch, that will really get under your skin. Starring Lucy Boynton, Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka, the movie is set in a girls’ boarding school over the Christmas holidays. It’s so atmospheric I struggled to take my eyes off the screen – even if what I was seeing was scaring the shit out of me.
7. JoJo Rabbit
Taika Waititi’s “anti-hate satire” is a WW2 movie unlike any other you’ve seen. He stars as the camp, comically accented Hitler whilst highlighting what it was like to be a child indoctrinated into a particular way of thinking. Avoiding any twee cliches about going on a “learning journey” or “coming of age”, this is a movie peppered with dark humour and extremely bleak moments (as well as Waititi’s sardonic humour). Sam Rockwell steals the show as Captain Klenzendorf.
6. The Trial of the Chicago Seven
Aaron Sorkin’s script for this is just wooooooft. Not a single beat; not a single word; not a single line is throwaway. It’s so fast-paced it’s incredible – you can practically feel the electricity and revolution in the air. Based on a true story, this Netflix release strongly holds up a mirror to tensions and political divides that continue to fracture America today. Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance are amongst the standouts in the cast. It’s an utterly thrilling – and, at times, beyond ridiculous – watch.
5. Saint Maud
This was the last movie I got to see in a cinema before Lockdown 2.0 and it really got under my skin. It’s creepy and sinister and almost gruelling to watch. Avoiding the usual religious mania/horror tropes, the movie centres around the relationship between the terminally ill Amanda (Jennifer Ehle, who is bloody brilliant) and her carer, Maud (Morfydd Clark). It really plays with your sense of reality and you’re never quite sure what’s coming next as the movie works towards its completely bat-shit terrifying conclusion.
4. The Mortuary Collection
Oh, how much fun I had watching this at FrightFest back in February! Clancy Brown – with a voice like hot chocolate strained through velvet – stars as the eccentric mortician Montgomery Dark in Ryan Spindell’s horror anthology. It’s like a love letter to classic 70s horror, with all of the little sub-plots woven together perfectly. It’s just an absolute joy to watch with moments of gruesome body horror that I know will be ingrained on my eyes forever.
3. The Invisible Man
Elisabeth Moss is just brilliant in everything. Shirley narrowly missed out on this Top 10 and she’s excellent in that, too. Here, she delivers a truly brilliant take on the classic horror icon. She’s a woman dismissed as hysterical and dramatic as she seeks to prove that her former partner is stalking her … in an invisibility suit. This movie will really have you checking over your shoulder after you’ve watched it. And that restaurant scene? One of the best I’ve ever seen in the history of modern horror.
2. 5 is The Perfect Number / Cinque e il numero perfetto
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this love letter to Italian gangster thrillers since I saw it at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year. It’s loud, it’s brash and it’s just so damn sharp. Igor Tuveri casts Toni Servillo as the lead in the adaptation of his own graphic novel and the result is like Sam Peckinpah meets Quentin Tarantino by way of classic Giallo. It was atmospheric and riddled with laser-sharp wit and the violence was just incredible in its hyperbole.
1. Parasite
Bong Joon Ho’s four-time Oscar winner is, without doubt, the best movie I have watched all year. Striking in its attack of the Korean class system, it was poignant and bleak; funny and heartbreaking. Centring around the wealthy Park family and the impoverished Kim family, the film is peppered with black humour and a social commentary that doesn’t hold back. It’s an absolute masterclass in tension-building. This is another film where you don’t know how things are going to unravel. Utterly deserving of all the praise and acclaim, Parasite is essential viewing.
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